This is actually not true as a matter of historical fact. Lots of the great protest songs were written either in flight and defeat (The Internationale itself, by a refugee from the destruction of the Paris Commune) or lots of stuff by the Weavers (dodging, fora time, the blacklist, or in outrage and anger by individuals -- Woody Guthrie was unforgettably chronicling the Depression before there was a real movement to hitch into,a and his songs helped; Florence Reese and Sarah Ogan Gunning (if you don't know her you should, she's a commie mining woman who wrote, among other things, the immortal I Hate The Capitalist System) in outrage in the face of broken strikes or thuggish attacks. Not to mention the Lots of the stuff came out of Highlander Folk School, where Pete Seeger learned We Shall Overcome in the mid-40s; it was connected with a strike, but that wasn't exactly the era of great mass movements. So Carrol's one way causality is wrong. And it's also true that mass movements since the 60s have not produced these anthems.
--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> Mass miitant movements come first, songs, posters,
> etc. follow.
>
> Carrol
>
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